Sony Developing Eye-Tracking Autofocus Tech, Tentative 2014 Release

Sony is reportedly working on technology that would allow users to focus photos simply by looking at a particular area of the viewfinder. It sounds fantastical—but easily one of the most ideal features that would ever come to photography.

SonyAlphaRumors claims the company is testing Eye Tracking autofocus, with a goal of introducing the technology sometime in 2014. Still a ways off, but let’s give Sony some breathing room to get this right; initial tests have allegedly been promising.

The tech, as SAR explains it, will track objects using infrared sensor in the viewfinder and tracking eye movement. There are some obvious advantages should Sony implement such a feature correctly, such as being able to focus on a rapidly moving object.

“The biggest disadvantage is that you will have to calibrate your eye for this to work properly,” SAR said. “Also this will only work using the viewfinder, it will not work using LiveView on the display. The feature can be enabled/disabled and will have a memory (calibration data) for 3 users.”

PetaPixel notes that Canon attempted a similar feature back in the days of film photography, but such tech hasn’t been introduced to the digital market (that I know of). Eye-controlled focusing; it almost sounds too good.